Such Great Heights
by theShapeOfLight
Summary: Moments leading up to the end of the beginning can be the most beautiful ones. A certain wizard and hatter seem to agree too, flying so far away in the moving castle some people can only find in storybooks.


This is simply my take on what happened between Howl getting his heart back and the last ending montage with the witch sitting outside and Markl playing with Heen and Sophie and Howl's kiss. A little fluff never hurt anyone, I say! I'm working on a longer Howl's Moving Castle fic, but this is just to tie me over while I'm working on the other one's next chapter...these are my first fics, so let me know what you think if you have time. Reviews are cool! Yeah! haha. Okay, I'm quiet now. Promise.  
The song is something I heard today for the first time, by The Postal Service or something. It's not entirely accurate. After all, they don't include cars for Sophie or Howl in the movie but the idea and the feeling is still in the song, and it is what moved me to write this, so it should be included in the story, I thought.  
Oh and Howl's Moving Castle isn't mine either. More's the pity, sigh.

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**Such Great Heights

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**

_  
I, I'm thinking it's a sign  
that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images  
and when we kiss they're perfectly aligned  
And I have to speculate  
that God himself did make  
us into corresponding shapes  
like puzzle pieces from the clay  
_

Howl, he who swallowed a falling star, lay propped up on his elbows in a lush patch of flora, nearby water trickling musically in the night. To his right lay Sophie, curled on her side, head resting on the curve of her shoulder. Absently, he reached down to gently brush a few stray wisps of hair off her face, tucking them tenderly behind her ear. This wasn't the first night they had spent talking until one of them dozed off surrounded by the secret garden's flowerets and starlit firmament. Even now he marveled at this place and how the sky seemed to melt in with the glasslike surface of the water, silver light radiating from the sky to the earth and back again. Somehow there was a gentleness in the night he couldn't account for in the daytime.

Directing his gaze back to one Sophie Hatter, he smiled that lazy smile he wore so often, but it was tinged deeply with something more feeling, something just more than he had ever been able, more than he had ever had the capacity to express. He did not ask much of her as she had already given him so much, his life to start and his heart—something entirely separate in his opinion—too. His heart helped him to grow to understand, he knew, just how much he cared for the young girl, eldest of two daughters and without fear. Undoubtedly she was special even before they encountered one another, but Howl felt even a little that it was their adventure together that had helped bring out the best in both of them. The occasional kiss and maybe the allowance to encircle her waist with his arm to pull her to him when he was feeling particularly enamored with her, these were all things he did with her and things he limited to, almost afraid to do any more, afraid to scare off the meaning behind his new life, his new height.

A contemplative, but acceptably contented sigh escaped his lips as he stood and knelt next to her, drawing her into his arms and carried her soundlessly through the port door into the castle as it began to move back into the night sky. They had been out enough for this evening. And they would be back of course, Howl told himself as he tucked Sophie into her bed and lightly—but no less lovingly—bid her goodnight with a lingering kiss, soft and certain.

_And true, it may seem like a stretch  
but its thoughts like this that catch  
my troubled head when you're away  
when I am missing you to death  
when you are out there on the road  
for several weeks of shows  
and when you scan the radio  
I hope this song will guide you home  
_

The next day found Sophie searching out the changed wizard and her feelings were a little less tender for him at this moment.

A little.

Because right now, she felt like she was going to kick him until he was dead.

"Howl?" she prodded pillows and such, just in case it was him since she knew him well enough to know he was not beyond hiding in such ways.

"Yes, Sophie love?" he quipped and dropped down next to her, very close, smiling and intense blue eyes shining with ten deeper shades of something unnamed and amazing. Stifling a gasp, she worked to keep her scowl from before.

"Where have you been? Old Witch and Heen and Markl are all out on the porch area and I've been looking for you for nearly an hour!" she said shortly and Howl only smiled more becomingly at her.

"What is it you want?" he asked kindly, leaning in toward her a little nearer and Sophie rooted herself mentally to where she stood, not wanting to give Howl the impression that she wanted to back up, which she did. His proximity was disorienting her in ways she could not quite figure.

"I, um, well, I just...I just wanted to know where you were, that's all," she decided upon and let out an internal exhale. Smooth, Sophie and she hit herself mentally too.

"Is that so?" his eyes slightly hooded, sparkled at her in amusement and she finally cracked, laughing softly and pushing at him without any real force behind it.

"Howl, stop laughing at me," she insisted and he gave her a very melodramatic stare and very Howl gasp.

"Me? Laughing at you, dear heart? I think you're the one who is laughing," he added at the end and she could not disprove that statement.

"Howl..." she shook her head, hands on hips, and as she was about to say something else he suddenly pulled her closer to him, hands circling around her waist to rest on the small of her back. A confused look up at him and an instant later had her captivated by his lips and if she had thought she was a little uncomfortable before, that discomfort just seemed to melt away...

"Sophie," he whispered even though no one else was there to hear, "come with me." He took her hand and led her out on the balcony.

_they will see us waving from such great heights,  
"come down now", they'll say  
but everything looks perfect from far away,  
"come down now", but we'll stay...  
_

"Look," he smiled and pointed at the water moving fast beneath the castle. Over some great body of waves, an ocean perhaps, the blues and whites and sunlight all rippled together to create such an effect that had Sophie lost for words. And just as fast as it was there, it was gone and they were flying over land again, over some forest and some hills, everything green. No more war, no more anything like that—the bombs, the fires, all gone, all just a bit of history now. Sometimes the hatter missed small parts of her life before all this...all this magic. But when she looked at it even remotely in seriousness, she knew she would change nothing, even given the opportunity to change everything and anything. If it hadn't happened just so, she feared there was a chance she would not have found what she did.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see Howl, staring out at the great expanses below, leaning on his arms against the railing, wind whipping his bangs and the rest of his hair as it wished, blowing it sometimes into his eyes. Occasionally he would exhale out the side of his mouth, effectively sweeping some bangs out of his eyes temporarily without having to lift a finger and she almost laughed. That was so like him. The young man, the young wizard known as Howl had grown significantly with the return of his heart, even in so short a time and it was becoming more and more evident what traits were truly his to stay and what was simply residue of a child who never got the chance to grow up.

But she loved him that way and yes, she loved him dearly. There was absolutely no use in even indirectly debating that fact with herself. That Sophie Hatter was in love with Howl of Howl's Moving Castle was not a problem though. Somehow she knew he felt the same, even if their bond was only just now growing on a more physical plane. It only made sense, she supposed. It had begun solely as a kindred spirit connection, a need to learn from each other, and sometimes, to help each other. Now it was different. The intermittent embrace or stolen kiss here and there, and this maybe kept it a little more interesting and completely unthreatening for her. And she knew he was being this way on purpose for her, and it comforted her in ways she could not quite explain but also in ways she felt she did not any longer need to explain, just to feel and this made her smile. That same smile widened and Sophie's sigh was one of relief. Howl, curious at her soft exhale, laced his fingers through hers, squeezing her hand gently at which she tilted her head upwards to him.

_I tried my best to leave  
this all on your machine  
but the persistent beat it sounded thin  
upon listening  
and that frankly will not fly  
you will hear the shrillest highs  
and lowest lows with the windows down  
when this is guiding you home  
_

"Howl," she thought maybe she had forgotten to distinguish something very important suddenly, after her most recent mental binge of consideration of him and her. "I—" he cut her off, bringing his mouth to meet hers in kind, in passion, in love and she thought maybe, maybe she hadn't forgotten after all. Forgetting herself and only remembering the two of them there together sharing space and air and the kind of rush only this kind of love could conjure, she turned more toward him, deepening the kiss. Her hands rested against the rail behind her as the castle angled itself a little in the wind of the sky, soaring over a town that looked much like hers and Sophie Hatter did not even notice. Neither did Howl.

And somehow they both knew that this was just how things were supposed to be.

_they will see us waving from such great  
heights,  
"come down now", they'll say  
but everything looks perfect from far away  
"come down now", but we'll stay._

_

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Thoughts? reviews? Let me know if you liked it. If you did you might like the other one I have...it's the only other story I have at all actually...haha...

-sofi


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